Helen Kennedy grew up on a hill farm in Mid-Wales and now lives 100 yards from the Irish Sea on the Ceredigion coast. She trained as a visual artist gaining a BA hons Fine Art Printmaking and PGCE Art and Design and then spent many years as an artist, teacher and workshop leader in Kent, Yorkshire and back in Wales. She has travelled widely to Japan, India, the US and throughout Europe.

During her MA Fine Art from the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, she created a range of prints and installations using plastic beach flotsam as her starting point. Helen finds these objects of significant aesthetic interest but was and is continually disturbed by the environmental impact caused by their unwanted presence. She recognises that this dilemma between the attraction and the repulsion of modern day living and its impact on the natural world is a common phenomenon.

Helen’s recent desire is to find meaning in the lush, green, Welsh landscape, to try to understand it through making art. She is looking forward to having time to concentrate in relative solitude not far, but far enough away from her usual very busy life. She intends to record the hills and the valleys, the trees, the stones and piles of slate left by the mining industry.

Of special interest are the rivers racing down their worn, rocky courses. Welsh place names are so evocative, invariably describing the physical aspects of the landscape, Afon Dulas, running through Corris being no exception, translating to English as the ultramarine, or black-green river.

The timing of Helen’s stay at Stwdio Maelor is of special significance for her as it comes by chance just prior to a second residency to Joya in Spain. This allows a fantastic opportunity to intimately study these two contrasting landscapes.